Watering My Plants FAIL

Well, they're still alive -- but the system failed.  Earlier I drew a diagram of my plan.

The X10 controller -- which I wasn't even using in it's X10-electrical-wire-transmit-glory because, probably, it sucks -- worked flawlessly for a week prior to me going on vacation.  I was using it in it's RF capacity, via the Firecracker attachment.  Windows scheduler ran a batch file to cycle the Firecracker.  I was pretty sure about this part.

I wanted to be able to supplement watering on hot days, or when my plants were visibly wilting.  My Touch Pro phone was setup on a tripod downstairs to ftp images every couple of seconds back to the webserver over wifi. Unfortunately, I knew I would have problems with this setup.  The phone would overheat in the sunshine and stop recharging the battery.  So I had to have it reboot itself a couple times a day to be safe.

I don't know how long it lasted, but on the second day I couldn't access the website.  It seems the Savant web server went down without asking me.

And I couldn't ftp in to check the pics, but I may have never opened up ftp to the outside...

But at least I could VNC on in and run the watering cycle.  At least for a couple days.  Apparently that failed too.  I thought the power went out...  Nope, UltraVNC went down.  And it never does that.

But the scheduler kept trickling along every day to supply just enough to keep them alive in the 100 degree heat.  At least until the day I returned.  It seems that the X10 receiver received the ON command, but not the OFF command.  I think it was trying to break my pump.

So I'm going to try an isolated arduino approach.  It should function as a basic fine-tuned timer with push button instant gratification and optional programming opportunities.